It’s been coming for a long time in Australia, since the GSM network was first released organisations have been making use of SMS capabilities to send out messages regarding products, services and competitions that they are offering to their target consumers.Nightclubs have made very large use of this technology, and with all technologies they evolve, a couple of years we saw the 3G network within the marketplace, but lack of churn from GSM to 3G made it difficult for marketers to decide to implement 3G technology in their IMC campaigns.

Being able to justify the use of such technology as a part of advertising campaigns is difficult in such an up and down industry, maybe the Next G will change the face of mobile advertising as we know it?

On a more negative side, will the Next G be the Next Flop for Telstra and advertisers?

What advertising content does the Next G provide?

Sensis as well as a number of leading advertising agencies have recently teamed up with Bigpond to begin advertising on Telstra’s whopping 850mhz network. Currently advertisers can choose from a variety of banners, links and even video content to send out to Next G customers. These capabilities were recently trialed by advertisers to display the full potential of the Next G in creating advertising campaigns.

Ms Claire Barwell the group manager of Sensis MediaSmart further believes that more market research needs to be put into this new network, as advertising wasn’t exactly the most feasible option with the 3G network due to a lack of knowledge surrounding usage of network capabilities of users.

She then went on to state that “Sensis is looking to develop our knowledge of the consumer response to mobile advertising, specifically testing usage rates, click throughs and the suitability of advertising messages to mobile delivery”.“We aim to understand how and when advertisements are accessed and responded to and will track which types of users and devices are the most and least active.”“We hope to further develop the model for how new media is monetised and delivered in Australia, capitalizing on the extraordinary opportunities afforded us by our inclusion in the Telstra family,” she commented.

Is 3G an attractive advertising option?

Even now not all mobile phones that are released have 3G, mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Sony Ericsson have only recently joined the 3G battle arena for the struggle between the networks involving current 3G veterans, Nokia and Motorola.Popular models such as the D600, and the k750i did not arrive with 3G capabilities, so network users were divided between 3G and GSM. Samsung has only just released their first 3G mobile in Australia, the Z400.

Recently however Nokia has pushed 3G adoptions with the release of the 6280, the N series mobiles as well as the 6233, but now that the Next G has been released, it may be too little, too late.

Late adopters may not be ready for the Next G and are more likely to get an older model phone and not bother with 3G at all. Usually people get new mobile phones in a much cheaper fashion – the re-contract or the non 3G supported network of prepaid.

Late adoption of these technologies due to re-contract dates also makes it difficult for consumers to keep up with technological advances; Optus offer various methods of early re-contracts such as contract rollback. This allows users to keep up with the latest mobile technology available to them.

Maybe it’s time Telstra pushed more people through the geek portal to join the Next Generation of mobile technology?

Last night I was one of 200 people, who were paid $50 to sit through an entertaining yet controversial Australian first hypno-marketing session at the Esplanade Hotel in Melbourne put on by clothing youth brand Golf Punk. Similar to any hypnosis show they made people do stupid things like pretend they were eating ice cream, milk a cow etc., except at the end they hypnotized the members into thinking Golf Punk was the ultimate brand.

Another sign traditional media no longer cuts through. Golf Punk used Experiential marketing as a platform to create awareness; traditionally a job for the TVC and radio spot. I discuss below (Sorry for the long post but I found this a really interesting sign of the times) One of the latest buzz words floating around marketing blogs is transumerism. The word helps to define the new type of consumer who is no longer after tangible product but more interested in spending their money on having experiences, capturing special moments. Experiential Marketing is businesses response to this trend.

Experiential Marketing started off not as a response for transumerism but as a way for the consumer to experience the product first hand, for example free samples of food at the supermarket, a recent innovative example was letting runners in NY Central Park trial the Apple ipod plus for a week and Ikea furniture being placed at bus stops around NY. However now experiential marketing has taken a turn toward the way B2B have been using the tool, they are now interested in giving the consumer an experience that may not be directly related to the features of the product but which help to transpire the brands identity and message. B2B have been using this by entertaining clients through corporate boxes at sporting events. An example of consumer experiential marketing event is Coke Live ’06 where they created an event which had all local cutting edge bands this helped to show the brands message off as a brand that was interested in having fun and also associating themselves with the underground music scene.

Last night I think I saw the newest form of experiential marketing; I see this as a changing of the time, traditional media is no longer towing the line. The 30sec TVC used to be seen as the best way to create awareness of a product. Experiential Marketing is usually used to help fulfil the higher order needs such as brand loyalty and trialing. Last night it was used as a tool for awareness.

Now the event is over get ready for the word of mouth campaign to start, this will only be boosted by the web2.0 climate, making communication amongst the internet generation having a larger reach and frequency.

I know in my own case I have told numerous people about the bizarre event. I posted a myspace bulletin to my friends list before the event asking if anyone want to come with me and if golf punk put a video up on youtube.com of the event there is a high chance I will show it to my friends who are interested in that stuff and lastly I have written this blog about the event. So there you go I am doing my bit for Golf Punk, or is that only because I have been hypnotized???

The only criticism would be when I tried to find the Golf Punk website, I got peanuts. This is unfortunate seeing they created such a great campaign to not have a website is a bit of an oversight, as consumers need to be able to go to the next level of the purchase decision model and by not having a frame of reference you are turning away many potential customers. If any video are released on youtube.com or on their website I will make sure to put them up here. Check out their website for more details http://www.hypnomarketing.biz

Anyone who follows the video file sharing sites will have seen the interest over the student being filmed getting innocently tasered at UCLA by police. I think this is the start of an interesting time for publicity industry. The video (I think it could be done by a student phone camera is a rough job where you really are just hearing an innocent student getting tasered repeatedly for not showing his student card. The playing field is changing fast for publicist. With the introduction of youtube, google and myspace video file sharing sites, I will show you the grave future of the industry through the recent example of the UCLA brand is currently going through.

Imagine this incident happened in 14th November 2004. Boy gets tasered in the UCLA library the following ensues.

The 100 people who were witnessed to the event would have been appalled by the actions of the UCLA police and would have told the people in their social network for the next week (max 30ppl each). It may have also been in the latest edition of the University Paper.

3,000 people would have heard about it plus another 10,000 from the local papers. 13,000 people opinion of UCLA and UCLA security have now taken a major battering this is a nightmare for the UCLA publicist.

Now fast forward to this accident happening in 14th November 2006. A student is lucky enough to have his phone camera with him and captures the events unfold. He goes home and puts it up on youtube that night and tells his 30 friends about it.

4 Days later, 1,100,000 people have viewed the footage. Unlike the people in 2003 they haven’t just heard about the incident they have viewed the footage

. If 13,000 people is a nightmare what is 1,100,000 telling 30 people for the next week what they saw on youtube? Word of mouth network is no longer your consumer’s local 30 friends; it is all now the 400 friends on their myspace account, the 200 people who subscribe to their youtube videos and the 10,000 people who posts on the forum of their favourite sports club.

Carrying on from the debate I had last week about the pro’s and con’s of ambient here is the second installment of the debate;

2. You are not getting nearly enough views as traditional media

It is all about segmentation of the market. We were looking at the example below for Pantene shop door advertising; he started talking about the how you are only getting the people walking into the store.

Well yes he was correct, you are only getting the people walking in to the store but these people are at the right stage of the buying process they are going into the store to buy products, so you are hitting them with this great cut through advertising just before they are about to give some money over to the chemist.

Here is a collection of in shop ambient campaigns

The second one here is a great one for Men's Magazine Che in the USA

The Third one is for a light whipped cream company which puts a mouth at the end of the supermarket conveyer belt. This is the first time i have seen this space being used.